


A Sanctuary For All

by tielan



Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-04 09:47:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16344488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: It is a truth almost universally unacknowledged that a single woman in protection of an escaped abnormal must be in want of a sanctuary.





	A Sanctuary For All

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shopfront](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shopfront/gifts).



It is a truth almost universally unacknowledged that a single woman in protection of an escaped abnormal must be in want of a sanctuary.

* * *

Caroline Bingley, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home and pragmatic disposition, seemed to unite some of the best fortunes of female existence; and had lived nearly twenty-five years in the world without ever having laid eyes on an abnormal.

“It’s no surprise,” said Florence Tamberlane at Lady Amberley’s garden party, “considering you’ve been up in Hertfordshire with your brother for the last six months. However, you’ll find that here in London one simply cannot seem to walk down the street without falling over one or another of them.”

She was speaking of the Continental refugees, a great many of whom were present at the afternoon party, dressed in what finery they’d been able to pack with them when they fled from Napoleon’s armies and telling tall tales of their escapes.

“He was walking along the village street just ahead of us,” said the Prussian noblewoman to her curious audience. “Then he turned a corner into a laneway, and when we passed it, he was not standing in the lane, nor walking down it, but scuttling along the wall, clinging to the side of it like a spider!”

“We had to escape through the sewers,” said the young man from Saxony. “There were—there were serpents in there – I saw the gleam of torchlight across their bodies, and the glow of their eyes!”

“My great-grandfather first noted it,” said the elderly baron. “Or, at least, it is from him that our lore of the gryphon begins. It had not been seen in a dozen years before this – old and infirm, with no young ones to bring up. And they had captured it for nothing more than entertainment – staked out for butchery!”

“Ridiculous tales of shadows and imaginings,” Caroline scoffed in the quiet of the carriage on the way home. “A spider-man, sewer-snakes, and captured fantasy creatures? What next? An invisible man? Fairy-folk? A unicorn?”

“War makes refugees of all, you know.”

“And apparently makes for fanciful stories for more.” Caroline sniffed, remembering the sharp slaps of the cane against her palm from her governess when she was seven. There was no room for flights of imagination in the Bingley household – not when the daughters of the house needed to be educated as well-born ladies of society. “Don’t tell me you believe all that nonsense, Helen!”

The smile from her old friend was faint and slightly satirical. Miss Magnus had always possessed an edged smile, even in their school days. “I believe there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in any philosophy, Caroline.”

* * *

With a fortune of $20,000, Caroline Bingley was in no state of want.

Yes, it was regrettable that Darcy – such a safely assured prospect in his friendship with Charles and his selectivity of association with the fairer sex – had fallen for the charms of Elizabeth Bennet and had lost his sense so far as to marry her, but Caroline was not pining for him.

In the two years since her brother had married, she had kept up the London townhouse. It was officially the family’s residence in town, but Charles was in no rush to occupy it with his let at Netherfield, and Louisa and Mr. Hurst had acquired their own townhouse in another fashionable part of town, so Caroline had the use of it for anything she should so chuse.

She held parties and presided over balls when her brother and Jane were in town. She entertained callers and guests and old friends and annoying relatives. And, overall, she was....moderately content with her life.

Until the evening that she returned from a ball given by one of the members of the _ton_ , and found Helen waiting in the library with a rather odd gentleman who was studying the bookshelves opposite the door, his broad back turned to her as he ran a clawed finger across the spines of the bo—

A clawed finger?

“I apologise for the intrusion, Caroline,” Helen said, seeing her gaze. “But I had nowhere else to go at this time of night since they’re watching my house.”

“Who, precisely, are _they_ , Helen?” Caroline was caught between outrage and disbelief. “And what, precisely, is _that_?”

Helen’s smile glittered like sunlight off the tines of a fork about to spear a slice of cake as the...the _thing_ turned around. Caroline stared. It looked a great deal like the orang-utangs that were in London zoo, only dressed in a gentleman’s clothing, complete with fob watch and jewels. His cravat was tied, his feet were in boots, his shirt points were precise...

But the face? The hands? This...thing was most certainly not _human_.

“ _His_ name is Ernesto Enradini.” Helen’s gentle lean on the pronoun was sharp as a reprimand. “And he is a scholar of medicine who has been working with my father these last ten years.”

“Your father the eccentric?”

“My father the eccentric.” She actually sounded proud of her father’s oddities. But then, even among the young ladies graduating from the finishing academy, Helen had always been considered different. A little too independent. A little too bluestocking. A little too opinionated and not quite diffident enough. “Unfortunately, some of my father’s enemies have found out about Ernesto, and reported his whereabouts to interested parties – specifically, the travelling circus which kept him caged before he came to us.”

The orang-utang... Mr. Enradini...was regarding Caroline with a solemn, slightly sad gaze, as though it could read her revulsion. Well, and she was making no effort to disguise her horror.

“And you brought him _here_?”

“Our house is now watched. And he is not so noticeable in gloves and a beaver.”

It was then that Caroline noticed the gloves and cane and hat leaning against the side table by the door. Perfectly gentleman-like, only both gloves and hat seemed rather...large. Helen continued, “All our usual associates are known to the people trying to retrieve him, so I needed to find an...unusual associate.”

Caroline looked from Helen to Mr. Enradini, horrified. “You want to keep him _here_?”

Helen laughed outright. “No, I wouldn’t ask that of you! We need somewhere to stay until just before dawn, that’s all. A ship is headed for India on the morning tide, and he has passage on it. There’s a sanctuary there all ready to take him.”

She wanted to say ‘no’. A monster-man in her house? Eating her food. Sleeping in her sheets? She was quite prepared to refuse Helen’s request – they could find a hotel, if they were so desperate! Or some other ‘unusual associate’. Caroline was weary after a night of socialising and dancing and the last thing she needed was to play hostess to a creature and its keeper...

And yet Mr. Enradini was watching her, his eyes dark and sharply intelligent. She couldn’t read his features, exactly, but she rather thought that he was expecting her to deny them safety.

Beneath that resigned gaze, her denial died on her lips.

_An unusual associate,_ Helen had said. And, Caroline had to admit, her curiosity was piqued.

This was rather more intriguing than the marriage mart, the gossip, the tea-parties, and even the subject of Napoleon’s depredations through Europe. Something _new._

“A sanctuary, you say?”

“For people and animals who aren’t ‘normal’ as we understand the word. Abnormals.” The word rolled off Helen’s tongue without hesitation. This was no new thing for her, then. How long had it been going? How far did it extend?

_Were_ there unicorns and gryphons and sewer-snakes after all?

Caroline plunked herself down on the couch. “If I offer you and Mr. Enradini refreshments, will you tell me more?”

The mischievous tilt to Helen’s smile reminded Caroline of more than one escapade the other woman had instigated during their years at the Academy. “We’d be more than delighted to tell you – with or without refreshments.”

* * *

Three hours later at the docks, Mr. Enradini walked up the gangplank of a ship readying for the morning tide, arm in arm with a dark-skinned woman who was Helen’s contact for the Indian sanctuary. His belongings had been taken on board, his farewells given.

Caroline watched him depart from the safety of her carriage, and waited for Helen to climb back in before tapping on the roof to tell the coachman to drive on.

“So,” she said as the coach rattled off through London’s pre-dawn streets, “this is a sanctuary for _all_?”

Helen looked at her for a long moment. Then she smiled.


End file.
